TExES™ Core Subjects EC-6: English Language Arts (901)

A teacher regularly reads stories aloud and then asks students questions about the stories. The teacher has noticed that a student appears to be struggling with proper word order and using the past tense when responding orally. Which of the following activities would best help the teacher informally assess the student's oral language development?

Observing the student over several days in a large group, small group, and individual settings [Observing the student in a variety of settings will give the teacher a more comprehensive view of the student's use of syntax.]

Which of the following in-class activities would best help an at-level first grader improve reading fluency?

Partner reading of a passage of 100 words, at the student's reading level, on a subject chosen by the student. [A passage of 100 words is an appropriate length for a first grader. Reading a passage at the student's current reading level will build fluency. A passage on a subject chosen by the student helps grab and retain student interest in the passage.]

A fourth-grade class has just read a version of "The Tortoise and the Hare" by Aesop. The students were asked to retell the story in their own words. One student wrote:

"The Tortoise and the Hare" is fiction. It tells about a race between two friends. A boastful hare challenged a tortoise to a race. The race began and Hare ran much faster than Tortoise. Hare was confident he would win, so he stopped along the road to take a nap. Hare woke up when he heard all of the animals cheering. In the meantime, Tortoise never gave up. He kept plodding along until eventually he passed by Hare and crossed the finish line. The story teaches us that faster is not always better. You should never give up no matter what."

Which of the following actions provides the best evidence that the student understands the elements of a fable?

Identifying the moral in the story

Based on the student's retell of the fable, the student will benefit most from instruction in which of the following skills?

Retelling details in a logical sequence [The details included in the story follow the topic. However, some appear to be out of order. It would be more logical for the sentence "Hare woke up when he heard all of the animals cheering" to follow the sentence "He kept plodding along until eventually he passed by Hare and crossed the finish line." It makes sense that Hare would be awakened by the animals' cheers as Tortoise crossed the finish line.]

Which of the following stages of writing development is primarily characterized by the use of pictures, labels, letters, and/or word attempts to convey a message?

Emergent [Emergent writers are beginning to make connections between letters and sounds. They know that letters and words carry meaning, and they label drawings to support the story. Print shows directionality]

A fifth-grade teacher notices that students in her new class are very shy and lack confidence when speaking before the class. Which of the following will best help students develop a sense of confidence, while also advancing their speaking skills?

Having students individually memorize folktales or stories to perform at a school storytelling event. [By having students memorize and perform in front of a large group, they will build confidence in their reading and oral language skills, as they determine the most entertaining way to relay the details of the story to an audience.]

A teacher is preparing lessons for a fourth-grade unit on Native Americans. She wants to provide tools so that students can collect information about tribes in each of the regions. She also wants students to include details about each group's food, clothing, shelter, and governing practices.

Which of the following will best display the information?

A matrix [A matrix is a chart used to show similarities and differences between two or more things. Students are able to extract details about each subject to use for studying or writing about the topic.]

A new teacher prepared a persuasive essay unit on controversial topics, building on skills students developed in prior classes. He identified several skills students need to strengthen and then crafted four activities. Feedback from his mentor, however, pointed out that students' research and inquiry skills would be more effectively developed if the new teacher rearranged the activities. In what order should the teacher arrange the following research and inquiry activities?

Generate topic questions; identify features of sources; interpret graphic sources of information; draw conclusions

An English teacher on a middle school team supports the Civics unit being taught by his teammate in Social Studies. The teachers collaborated to create a word wall of terms related to citizenship, which appear in both the novel the students are reading and the Civics lessons. Which type of vocabulary are these teachers teaching and modeling?

Specialized [The vocabulary of a specific discipline or terms used in a specific field are called specialized vocabulary.]

Which stage in acquiring writing conventions follows directly after learning letter formation?

Word writing

A fifth-grade class is studying Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening." Which of the following activities would best teach active reading comprehension of the text?

Discussing themes in the poem and comparing them to modern poetry. [This activity allows students to actively discuss the poem and connect it to their own experiences and literary backgrounds.]

A fourth-grade class has just finished reading James and the Giant Peach. The students have different learning styles, so their teacher wants to give them multiple options for their final reading assessment. Which of the following assessments would be the most suitable for judging the reading comprehension of kinesthetic learners?

Asking the students to act out a scene from the book. [Kinesthetic learners demonstrate their knowledge best by acting out their ideas.]

A sixth-grade Language Arts class is studying Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The text includes vocabulary that the students do not use in their daily lives. In order to help the students connect the unfamiliar vocabulary with their own home language, the teacher should

Practice using context in order to find meaning as a class. [This strategy will teach the students how to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words through deductive reasoning and will encourage them to take ownership of their own learning.]

A fifth-grade student who has no trouble answering writing questions in class is having difficulty finishing the weekly timed writing prompts. These prompt scores are beginning to negatively affect her grades in the class. In order to address this problem, her teacher should

give her guided practice on pacing her writing so she does not run out of time. [This strategy will give the student extra practice and help her better pace her writing during timed prompts.]

A fourth-grade teacher wants students to focus on the aspect of prosody as they work to increase their reading fluency. Which of the following materials would be the best choice for the teacher's goal?

A poem about pancakes by a children's poet [Prosody is most often associated with poetry, so a poem will help students focus on it.]

Read the following short essay written by a fourth-grade student, and then answer the question that follows.

My favrit day this year was my birth day when I turnt 9. I gots lots of stuf from my mom and dad and frends. they sang to me and we ate chese pizza cake and ice crem and I got brain frez from the vanla ice crem my hert was so hapy I felt hapy that day.

Which of the following comments should the teacher write on the student's paper to offer guidance for future writing assignments?

Remember: How we write is often different from how we speak. [The student has spelled words and written sentences in a way that is similar to spoken English but does not follow writing conventions.]

A fourth-grade teacher notices that most students are struggling with their ability to decode words that are at or above grade level, like "disappointment," "unexpected," and "lovable." Which of the following strategies would be most effective in helping students improve their decoding abilities?

Teaching the meanings and uses of prefixes and suffixes. [When students understand prefixes and suffixes, their ability to decode improves. Fourth grade is an appropriate time to introduce this information.]

Which of the following in-school small-group projects would be the best choice for helping students learn about locating and retrieving information from the school library's print resources?

Give each group a scavenger hunt of information to locate from a variety of print resource types. [A scavenger hunt will help students learn about the different types of resources available, as well as how to locate information within those resources.]

A teacher of a fifth-grade class is teaching students how to select and use visual elements in their writing. The teacher has an example article on the development of the Model T automobile. The teacher also has a timeline that can accompany the article but that is not imbedded in the article. After students have read the article, how can the teacher best use these materials to help students with the learning goal?

Students do not receive copies of the timeline and instead, in pairs, draft visual elements for the article and share them with other pairs. [Asking students to draft their own visual elements for the article will encourage them to think about the use of visual elements for complementing and extending meanings.]

A fourth-grade teacher plans to use the following passage from a nonfiction text about frontier schools as part of a unit on using nonfiction texts:

A frontier school was often a wooden building with one big room that had been built by parents or community members. All the students learned in this room at the same time. Some schools only had two or three students. Other schools were very large, with fifty students or more. While some schools had desks for each student, other schools had benches that students shared. Students often shared their textbooks because books could be expensive and scarce.

As part of the unit on using nonfiction texts, the teacher wants students to learn about text features that can help them with comprehension. Which of the following whole-class activities would best help students with this learning goal?

Divide the passage into short sections and create headings for each. [While the passage is short, it does have distinct subject areas that could be divided and given headings, which would help students understand the purpose of headings in their reading.]

Which of the following activities would best help students expand their vocabulary related to frontier schools after they've read the passage above?

Students read a fiction story about frontier students and then in small groups discuss new or unfamiliar words they encountered. [When students choose their own reading material, they are more invested in their reading and are more likely to remember unfamiliar or new words they encounter.]

The teacher wants students to write a well-organized paragraph that compares and contrasts frontier schools with their own school. Which of the following activities is the best choice for the teacher to use to help students understand how to write topic sentences for this purpose?

Individually, students read compare-and-contrast paragraphs that are missing topic sentences, write their own topic sentences for them, then share them with the class and teacher. [This activity allows students to try writing their own topic sentences and receive feedback and instruction.]

As part of a unit on poetry, a fourth-grade teacher wants students to read a poem about children who attend an Elementary school in another country. To be sure that students' comprehension of this reading passage is appropriate for their grade, the teacher most likely needs to

Introduce the country's history and culture. [Students' reading comprehension can be affected by their prior knowledge or lack of prior knowledge of the passage's topic.]

A fifth-grade class has finished reading a nonfiction text about life in the United States in the 1960s. Which of the following activities can the teacher use as the best springboard for teaching students how visual image makers represent messages and meanings?

Analyze photographs of suburbia, a rock concert, and Vietnam vets in the 1960s. [Analyzing photographs from events that occurred during this time period allows students to compare and contrast how images influence perception and meaning.]

Fifth-grade students are reading a passage from a nineteenth-century book in which they encounter a word whose meaning has evolved since the passage was written. Which of the following resources would be the best choice for students to use to understand the word's meaning?

Dictionary [A dictionary can give students a word's etymology and history, including its previous meanings.]

A fourth-grade class has just finished a unit on a historical fiction book set during the Great Depression. The teacher wants to target kinesthetic learners with an activity to move students' new vocabulary knowledge from their short-term to their long-term memories. Which of the following activities would be the best choice for the teacher's goal?

Students create body movement cues to help them remember words' meanings. [Kinesthetic learners learn best by movement and action, and an activity that focuses on remembering words' meanings is an effective way to reinforce vocabulary.]

While teaching a research writing unit, a teacher asks her students to break into small groups, share the first drafts of their research papers, and exchange feedback. This activity addresses which of the following stages of writing?

Revising [During the revising stage, students receive general feedback about their writing. This activity would allow them to share feedback in a group setting and learn from each other.]

A student wants to strengthen his word identification skills to improve his score on an upcoming test. To best prepare the student, during their practice sessions the teacher should focus on.

identifying prefixes and suffixes [Teaching the student to identify prefixes and suffixes will strengthen his word identification skills. It will show him how to decode words by examining the different parts of words.]

A 5th-grade student writes an expository essay. 1st Paragraph:

The Black Stallion is a book about a shipwrecked boy named Alec who befriends a beautiful black horse on an island. The story starts with the boy sailing to India. The boat is very large. The horse is also on the boat. Later, the boat sinks in a storm. He and the horse live on seaweed together and become friends. When the boy is rescued, he saves the horse and takes the horse home with him. Once he is home, Alec decides that he wants to ride the horse in a race against two famous horses. Even though people say that his horse will not win, Alec believes in his horse. The climax of the story is when the horse is hurt during the race. However, they still win. At the end of the book, Alec finds out that they broke a world record. World records are very difficult to break. This book tells the story of two friends who work together to achieve something great.

Plot. [The student focuses on the plot's arc throughout the story, recording the main events in the story.]

Before the students start reading The Black Stallion in class, which activity should be used to facilitate reading comprehension?

Generating questions based on the cover and synopsis [Generating questions will increase the students' interest in the book and help guide their reading.]

Based on the first paragraph of the student's essay, which element of the student's writing needs the most improvement?

Removing unimportant details. [The student includes several unimportant details that distract from the paragraph's main focus.]

After reading students' essays on The Black Stallion, the teacher realizes the students are having difficulty connecting the text with their personal experiences. How can the teacher best foster this connection in the classroom?

Have the students journal about a time they felt like Alec. [This activity will help the students identify with the main character and draw connections between the teacher's experiences and theirs.]

After finishing reading Number the Stars, the teacher instructs the students to choose a side character from the story and then write a new scene told from that character's point of view. This activity is designed to teach the students how to

Expand a story by writing in a different voice. [ This activity teaches students how to write in a different voice by having them practice writing from a different character's perspective.]

A fourth-grade teacher notices students are having difficulty comprehending the complex vocabulary in an article about clouds. Which of the following is the best way to strengthen their independent reading comprehension skills by focusing on vocabulary development?

Reading aloud a magazine article and modeling how to use context clues to figure out unknown words. [The teacher empowers the students and promotes independents by modeling how they can use clues from the text to figure out what a word means.]

Students in Ms. Warner's fifth-grade class are starting a research project. The teacher wants students to gather facts by using varied types of media at school and at home. During a parent informational meeting, Ms. Warner shares safe ways parents can help their students research at home. Which of the following suggestions might be the most effective way parents can help their children access media to continue the research at home?

Conducting an Internet search using student-friendly resources available on the school's web page. [It is important that students use safe and appropriate resources that are relevant to their learning and development as responsible digital citizens. Resources vetted by the school or district are best for conducting Internet research.]

Fifth grade students are reading a historical fiction novel set in Michigan during the height of the Great Depression. Which of the following is the best way for students to visualize the events of the story so that they develop an understanding of the text?

Reading a page and sharing the image created in their minds. [The strategy allows students to monitor their comprehension by visualizing what is happening in the story while they read.]

A sixth-grade class is learning how to write a thoughtful claim and support it with reasonable evidence. The teacher shows a video clip called "No Taxation without Representation," and the students discuss some of the pros and cons of taxation for both the British and the colonists. Which of the following is the best way for students to demonstrate their ability to defend a position with evidence?

Write letters from a colonist's point of view to describe life in America. [Letters are written in narrative form and do not require students to construct claims or provide support.]

Students in Mr. Jones' class have been conducting a science investigation on butterflies. Each day, students record observations in their journals. One student wrote the following entry:

The buterfly is wigling in the cup. It ate the apple up. I think it is going to grow biger and biger I think it wil be a buterfly soon.

Based on the entry, the student will benefit most from instruction in which of the following skills?

Spelling words with double consonants. [Based on the entry, the student shows a clear pattern of incorrectly spelling words with double consonants.]

Which of the following reading practices provides the best encouragement for students to read independently for pleasure?

Reading aloud to students as a daily classroom practice. [Students are motivated to explore different genres and authors when they hear a variety of books read aloud in class.]

The reading teacher provides his students with a bookmark they use all year. It has a short checklist of questions for reading comprehension. The questions are as follows: "Was my prediction correct? How would I retell the story? How does the story connect to my world?" Which of the following are the teacher's instruction goals?

Enhancing reading comprehension through metacognitive skills in a variety of texts. [By providing the checklist so students ask themselves questions, the teacher is building metacognitive skills; because they are using it all year, they are using it in a variety of texts.]

Which of the following questions would a teacher eliminate as a model of an open-ended question?

Would this case be handled in state, local, or federal court? [This question requires a short answer that is right or wrong based on facts.]

A language arts teacher who is familiar with her students' abilities has prepared a set of discussion handouts. Students sign up for book groups after looking through the choices to find one they feel comfortable reading. She prints the packet with a Table of Contents that includes a description of the activities. The groups can do them in the order they feel necessary to get the most out of the books.

Star Tracker: Award a character stars for the character's responses to challenges. Were they a force for positive change

Which kind of understanding is the teacher building with Star Tracker?

Evaluative. [Students demonstrate evaluative comprehension by analyzing character development, detecting faulty reasoning, and explaining point of view, among other skills.]

Goldilocks' Bookshelf: Write a short recommendation for friends about the book. How many of our "just right" books have you read this week?

What reading level has the teacher identified with Goldilocks' Bookshelf?

Independent [The teacher has identified that she is working with the students at the independent reading level: texts are relatively easy ("just right") so that they can manage the activities on their own.]

Etymology Scavenger Hunt: Find words with prefixes, suffixes, and roots on these lists. Bonus for breakdown of Our Thesaurus words!

Which instructional goal does the teacher have for the Etymology Scavenger Hunt?

Develop structural analysis [Structural analysis is gaining understanding from prefixes, suffixes, and roots.]

In which two activities did the teacher embed strategies to develop inquiry and study skills?

Our Thesaurus and Etymology Scavenger Hunt [The activity of identifying key vocabulary and searching for synonyms and studying etymology helps students build inquiry and study skills.]

The teacher of a fourth-grade class wants to help students develop their vocabulary in the content area of astronomy. Which of the following materials would provide rich contextual support for this vocabulary development?

A newspaper article about solar and lunar eclipses [A newspaper article is likely to explain topic-specific words, which will give students the contextual support they need.]

Which of the following elements is necessary for the correct pencil grip for a Kindergarten student?

The thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger of the writing hand are slightly bent. [Fingers slightly bent allows the pencil to move and prevents stress and fatigue.]

A first-grade teacher has given students bingo cards with names of classroom objects in the spaces. As the teacher holds up an object and says its name, students mark the word on their cards if it is there. Which of the following learning objectives is the teacher most likely working towards?

Students understand the link between oral and written language. [By seeing an object and identifying its name in written form, students make connections between oral and written language.]

A third-grade teacher wants to help students practice summarizing fiction readings. Which of the following methods would best help the teacher with this learning goal?

Using graphic organizers to outline the sequence of events in readings. [Using graphic organizers can help students understand abstract content and ideas, such as summarizing fiction.]

"Today, the periodic table of the elements is a shape that many people recognize. Columns, which run up and down, are called "groups." In these groups, elements are arranged by how they behave. Rows, which run across the table, are called "periods." As we move across the table from left to right and top to bottom, the mass of one atom of each element increases.

However, the periodic table did not start out in such an orderly format. When efforts to visually organize the elements began, not all of the elements we know about today had been discovered. Based on the information they had, scientists knew that there should be more elements, but in some cases they lacked the technology to find proof of those elements. Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, left blank spots in his design of the periodic table. That way, when the elements were discovered, they could be added to the table in the right places."

- Wht is main idea

The periodic table has not always looked the way it does now. [The passage states that "the periodic table did not start out in such an orderly format."]

At the beginning of the passage study, the teacher wants to engage students while also enhancing their future reading comprehension of the passage. Which of the following methods is the best way to meet this goal?

Asking students what they already know about the periodic table. [Activating students' prior knowledge will both engage students and enhance their reading comprehension.]

After students complete the unit on the periodic table from their textbook, the teacher asks them to find a different type of text (newspaper article, blog post, etc.) on the periodic table and bring it to class to share. Which learning goal would this assignment best meet?

Students engage in reading a wide range of materials. [The assignment focuses on finding and reading different types of texts.]

Fifth-grade students in Ms. Warner's class are putting on a performance to make people aware of the effects of bullying. They have written a short description and created a flyer to invite the community to view their performance. Which of the following would be the most reasonable way for the students to advertise their production so that they reach as many people from varying age groups as possible?

Sending the announcement to local radio stations. [Sending the announcement to different radio stations would increase the opportunity to reach a wide listening audience. People in different age brackets and ethnic groups listen to radio.]

Sixth grade students are listening to a recording of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech to address critical listening skills. Which of the following techniques is the most effective way for the students to evaluate the speaker's message?

Identifying the components of the dream and debating whether they are evident in society today. [To correctly determine whether the components of Dr. King's dream are evident today, students would need to be able to analyze what King's intent or message was.]

A fourth-grade teacher is completing a reading diagnostic that includes a cold reading of leveled texts and a list of sight words to determine students' strengths and weaknesses. Which of the following would be a clear indication that a student may require intervention services to bring her up to grade level expectations for literacy development?

The student misses several words in a grade-level text and heavily relies on pictures to figure out unknown words. [When a student misses words in the text, it is an indication that the text is too difficult. Further, students who rely on pictures to figure out words are still developing effective decoding skills. Fourth-grade students should be able to utilize multiple strategies to read, decode, and solve words. Pictures clues should not be a primary strategy at this point.]

Students in Mrs. Clark's class are engaged in a unit on healthy eating. First the students interviewed cafeteria staff and conducted student surveys about cafeteria food. Then the students wrote persuasive essays to argue in favor of eating lunch in the school lunchroom as part of a healthy eating lifestyle. Mrs. Clark would next like to extend this activity to help her students develop speaking and listening skills. Which of the following extension activities will best meet Mrs. Clark's objective?

Have the students use their essays to develop speeches to convince their classmates of the benefits of eating lunch at school. [When students refine their writing for a new purpose, they must think critically about the development of their writing for their purpose and audience.]

During a reading conference, a fourth-grade teacher listens as a student reads a book of his choice. The student struggles to read, missing a word in nearly every sentence. Which of the following strategies would best help the student make appropriate book choices to support reading fluency?

Using questions to determine an appropriate text readability. [The Goldilocks method is an appropriate strategy students can use independently to check out just-right books. Asking questions such as "Is this book interesting to me?," "Can I read all the words on a page?," and "Can I retell what just happened?" will help a student determine if the book is too easy, too hard, or just right.]

A fourth-grade teacher listens as a student reads aloud from a library book. She notices the student races through the words with no mistakes. However, the student cannot remember many of the details from the story. Which self-monitoring technique would best help this student so that she can better comprehend as she reads?

The student needs to monitor her comprehension as she reads by reading a section of text and then pausing to consider what she has read. If it doesn't make sense, she should reread the page or section. [This student has no problem decoding words. However, she is not thinking about the text as she reads. Asking questions or stopping throughout the text to review the storyline will help her better comprehend it.]

A fourth-grade teacher decides to use students' knowledge of synonyms and antonyms to increase their understanding of analogies. Which of the following questions does the teacher include?

Sad is to happy as cold is to what? [In order to answer this question, students must understand that "sad" and "happy" are antonyms and then be able to apply that understanding to retrieve the concept and word choice "hot" or "warm." This indicates that the student grasps both concepts: antonyms and analogies.]

Students in a sixth-grade classroom begin their days by reading about a news topic they are following and then writing in their journals about the events of the day. Which of the following instructional methods will most effectively build vocabulary and fluency?

Asking students to compile personal glossaries for use by writing in journals. [Students are building their personal vocabularies by identifying words they need to know. Using these words in their journals will reinforce learning.]

Ms. Lee's fifth-grade students are reading speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy. The students discuss their impressions of the speeches. Then Ms. Lee has the class watch and listen to the speeches on video. What is her instructional goal?

Students analyze how language, medium, and presentation contribute to the message. [Through this exercise, students are able to analyze the advantages of delivering a speech using tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language that are not available in a written message.]

Which of the following actions best represents the first step in research and inquiry skills for a fourth-grade class that needs to learn collaboration?

Generate open-ended questions for their parents on family history. [Open-ended questions prompt discussions because they cannot be answered with a yes or no; students and parents collaborate to gather the necessary information.]

A teacher notices that some students in the class have trouble with public speaking. Which of the following will best help each student improve his or her oral language skills?

Recording practices, after which students listen with headphones to themselves. [By listening to themselves, students self-assess areas for improvement.]

Fourth-grade students are writing essays about national holidays. They just turned in their first drafts. Which of the following does the teacher expect the students to have focused on?

Developing ideas on the topic. [A first draft should include the main points and develop the overall structure of the piece.]

A fourth-grade teacher can best help students comprehend an expository text by?

guiding the students to use multiple text features to gain an overview of content. [Guiding students to use text features (e.g., title, tables of contents, illustrations) helps students locate specific information in expository text.]

The teacher of a fifth-grade class decides that morphemic analysis is the best way to help students improve their vocabulary knowledge. Students will study words like advisable, miserable, marvelously, and review, taken from texts that students will read in class. How can graphic organizers be used to help students with this study?

Students use charts to break words down into their prefixes and meanings, root words and meanings, suffixes and meanings, definitions based on those constructions, and definitions found in dictionaries or glossaries. They then use the information in these charts to create words that are new to them and use reference materials to determine if these words do exist. [Morphemic analysis focuses on the parts of words and their meanings. This activity encourages students to look at the parts that make up words and their meanings and then to use this knowledge to hypothesize about word formation.]

During a unit on propaganda, a fifth-grade class is learning how to analyze and evaluate varied types of visual media. Which of the following is the best way for students to evaluate the effectiveness of different types of media and how they communicate their message?

Students review media such as political cartoons, posters, and commercials related to topics in pop culture to determine the propaganda techniques used and use a rubric to score them and compare results. [Students are analyzing different types of visual media and using a rubric to evaluate them against a standard. Comparing the results requires the students to consider the likenesses and differences between the types of media.]

Which of the following comments from the teacher best addresses the problem of plagiarism in the first draft of a research paper?

When using sources, try to understand them as a whole and then explain in your words. [This not only tells the student that there is a problem, it also tells the student how to fix it.]

Which of the following reading practices allows the teacher to provide the best conditions for students' fluency?

Teach students important difficult vocabulary words before students read. [This will help students remember the words and improve comprehension, which leads to fluency.]

Why should a teacher offer suggestions to students' families for an at-home reading activity, like reading a story together as a family and asking the child to summarize it?

To foster improvement in reading comprehension [Collaboration of this type between families and the teacher promotes students' reading comprehension.]

The teacher of a fifth-grade class has noticed that a student is having difficulty decoding words such as magician, presidential, and heroic when reading aloud with the teacher or with other students. When working with this student individually or in a small group in reading, which of the following learning goals should the teacher focus on?

Students will prove understanding of the effects of morphology on phonology when reading aloud. [The student is struggling to recognize that phonology can change when a suffix is added.]

A teacher of a fourth-grade class wants to help students understand how to use commas properly when writing. Which of the following genres of writing would be most appropriate for this learning goal?

Personal Narratives. [Personal narrative is the genre most conducive to learning about proper comma use]

Which of the following activities is the best way for students to develop their vocabularies?

Read and respond to a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts. [By interacting with a variety of authentic texts, students increase their vocabularies.]

A passage appears on an assessment that does not assess learning based on any specific curriculum but rather the broad skill area of reading comprehension. As part of the results from the assessment, the teacher is given information that shows how each student's results compare to those of other students. What type of reading comprehension assessment would the passage most likely appear in?

Norm-referenced test. [A norm-referenced reading comprehension assessment tests broad areas of skill and compares students' results to results from other students who have previously taken the same assessment.]

As part of an assignment to write a rough draft of an autobiography, a fourth-grader writes the following sentences:

[I live with my mom, sister, cat and fish Charlie. I like soccer and drawing. When I was a baby I liked my blankit. For my 8 birtday I got a tablit. I was born here.]

As guidance for final drafts, which of the following feedback comments addresses the biggest global problem with the student's writing, while still providing encouragement?

"Check the order of your sentences. Thank you for sharing about yourself." [The teacher provides both instructive feedback on a global problem and encouragement to motivate the student.]

A fourth-grade student has written an essay about the migration of butterflies. During a writing conference, the teacher notices he has a number of sentence fragments. Which of the following is the best way for the teacher to help the student recognize and fix his mistakes?

Reading the paper aloud and identifying the subject and predicate of each sentence. [Reading the paper aloud may help the student begin to identify mistakes in sentence structure. If the student is able to determine where the subject and predicate are in a sentence, he or she will be more inclined to fix it.]

A Kindergarten teacher is conferencing with a group of young writers. The students are confident about the stories they have written. As they read, the teacher notices two- and three-letter words with letters representing the beginnings and endings of words. Based on the students' spelling development, which of the following actions would best support these students as they transition to the next stage?

Identifying spelling patterns and sounds in words the students frequently use or will encounter while reading. [Students in the phonetic stage are able to associate letters with sounds but need additional practice with common word patterns and other spelling strategies.]

Second-grade students are recording daily observations of various insects during a science investigation. The students will write informational articles about their discoveries. One student has chosen to write about butterflies and how they start as an egg, emerge as a caterpillar, build a cocoon, and then transition into a butterfly. The butterfly lays eggs and follows the same pattern. Which of the following visual images would support the student's article by accurately depicting the information?

A circle map containing photos of the life stages in sequential order. [The student's paper discusses the stages in the life cycle of a butterfly. The information is best depicted in sequential order. A circle map is used to indicate that the stages begin again once the butterfly has reached adulthood.]

A parent notices that her child can decode words very well but reads very slowly. Which of the following activities might the teacher suggest to the parent to help the student improve reading fluency at home?

Rereading a book several times while tracking time with a stopwatch. [When students reread the same text, they become familiar with the words. They improve their reading speed and tone with each reading.]

What evidence from the text supports the idea that loggerhead turtles are fragile creatures that could be in grave danger?

The Little Loggerhead Rescue Squad passes out fliers to remind visitors and families to turn out their porch lights when the baby turtles begin to hatch. [The very nature of the name of the group suggests that the turtles need some kind of human aid. Porch lights can prevent the tiny turtles from making it to the safety of the ocean.]

The teacher wants students to analyze complex vocabulary prior to reading this passage to increase comprehension. When she previewed the passage, she thought students may have difficulty with words such as incubated, disorient, relocated, and disturbed. Which of the following activities would best help the students decode some of these more difficult words so that they can better comprehend the story?

In a guided lesson, the students discuss the meanings of base words and affixes associated with the target words. Then they generate lists of words they know contain these parts. [Most of the words listed contain a prefix, suffix, or root that would help students analyze and discover the meanings of the words in the context of the passage.]

First-grade students are writing stories about their favorite things to do with a friend. A student writes the following narrative:

[I like to go to the park wit Jacob. Jacob are my friend. We play on the slide and the swing. He push me and I push him too. We is going to the fair nex week. We gone ride the roller coster.]

Which of the following skills would the student best benefit from?

Making the subject and verb agree. [The writing contains several grammatical errors. The student needs to develop an understanding of subject-verb agreement.]

A fifth-grade teacher is planning to use a nonfiction article about airplanes to support a study of force and motion. She wants to make sure her students are able to read the article independently, with a clear understanding of the content and vocabulary. Which of the following exercises would best prepare the students for reading the passage with understanding?

Working with a partner to discuss and sort content-specific words from the passage. [Word sorts encourage students to think critically about the words, their patterns, and their connection to other things they know to create contextual meaning. Working with a partner allows collaboration and presents the opportunity for students to learn from each other.]

A fourth-grade teacher showed two commercials that reminded people to pick up litter. On a compare-and-contrast graphic organizer, students recorded that the first commercial was animated and included rock music and that the second commercial was acted out by people and included orchestra music. Students realized that the first commercial appealed to teens and the second commercial appealed to adults. What instructional goal did the teacher accomplish?

The students learned how various design techniques used in media can convey the same message to different audiences. [The animated commercial reminded young people to pick up litter, and the commercial with orchestra music reminded older people to do the same thing.]

Third-grade students were very excited about the vegetable seeds they planted because they would eventually get to take the young plants home. The teacher helped the students update their parents on the project via an online blog. Students worked in pairs, with one student typing in the blog's browser interface as the partner proofread for grammar and spelling errors. What is the teacher's primary instructional goal?

Students learned to integrate technology with writing skills for communication and publication. [Students made a published record of the project to an audience via technology while helping each other improve writing skills.]

Fifth-grade students are reading a memoir from the 1960s about the civil rights movement. A number of chapters discuss federal laws at the time. Their teacher has given them a handout with sentences to finish that include, "The author believes ... " and "I don't understand what the author means when she says ... " What is the teacher's instructional goal for the students?

They will monitor their own comprehension. [To complete this exercise, students need to articulate concepts that they do understand and identify ideas that they do not understand, thus monitoring comprehension.]

Although second graders can understand contextual ideas as they take turns reading their storybook aloud, the teacher would like to add an activity to connect the ideas in the text to the students. Which of the following writing activities will a second-grade teacher choose?

Write a journal entry of what the story reminds them of. [This is a text-to-self writing activity that requires students to connect the author's ideas to their own lives.]

A fourth-grade teacher provided a graphic organizer for research in a unit on conservation using fiction and nonfiction selections. As part of the project, students read one book together that the teacher introduced to the class and then choose a second book from the library. Each student then fills in a handout as he or she reads. Afterwards the students gather in small groups to share their findings with their classmates and compare ideas that the various authors provided.

The teacher asked the students to share their organizers to discuss the various opinions they uncovered. What is the teacher's primary instructional goal for this activity?

Students will understand an author's purpose for writing and point of view in a variety of texts. [The organizers help students identify each author's purpose, and the discussion provides the opportunity for them to compare poin of view in different texts.]

By supporting the class as they read through the first book, then allowing students to follow with their own choice, what is the teacher providing?

Guided and independent practice. [The teacher gave guided practice with the book students read together and independent practice followed with the book they individually selected.]

Which of the following sections of the organizer will best facilitate the students' discussion activity in order to make text-to-text connections?

Main Idea and Supporting Detail. [Asking students to compare the main ideas and supporting details between books focuses them on text-to-text connections.]

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